April 14, 2014

In the past 10 years Germany as gone from being the "sick man of Europe" to the star of the eurozone. This partly reflects the strong job creation that preceded the recession, perhaps due to the labor market reforms of 2003. However the post-2007 performance is even more amazing. There was almost no increase in unemployment during the recession, and the unemployment rate has fallen to relatively low levels during the recovery.

Why has Germany's unemployment rate fallen 3 points since the end of 2007, while America's is still 2 points higher?

I would suggest that one straightforward clue can be deduced from looking at population changes from 2000 to 2008 (assuming Google's handy time charts can be trusted)

Germany's population fell by about 100,000 (-0.1%) from 2000 to 2008. Germany used to have a lot of immigration from Turkey, but the country has been quietly cutting back on that as it turned out that the Turks quickly stopped working and went on welfare. Ironically, some of the denunciations of Thilo Sarrazin's bestseller against mass immigration, Germany Abolishes Itself, no doubt came from insiders who agreed with it but didn't want to draw attention to the fact that they'd been implementing some of it avant la lettre.

In contrast, the population of the U.S. grew by about 21,800,000 from 2000 to 2008 (+7.8% in just 8 years).

Even more strikingly, Spain's population grew from by 5,200,000 (+13.1%).

During the 2000 to 2008 period, in contrast to tightening-up Germany, the U.S. and Spain both had similar immigration policies focused on importing large numbers of Latin Americans. The Spanish theory was that they would get better Latin Americans than the Americans because the Latin immigrants already spoke the national language of Spain so they would be more economically productive faster. Also, because it's more expensive to get to Spain from Latin America, Spain expected to get a higher class of Latin American immigrant.

These Spanish immigration ideas actually seem pretty sensible compared to the lowbrow, emotional American views, as enunciated by President Bush in a Presidential Debate in 2004:

"... you're going to come here if you're worth your salt ..."

But, being slightly smarter about immigration than George W. Bush hasn't saved Spain from catastrophe. Currently, the unemployment rate in Germany is 5.1% and in Spain it's 25.8%.

Obviously, there are a lot of other things going on in these comparisons, such as the Euro.

However, many Spaniards emigrate--London is supposedly full of millennial generation Spaniards, and the German economy must be taking some as so 25% is worse than US's --but not by as much as we imagine

Germany has in recent years moved very quietly to restrict immigration. Turkish net migration has even become slightly negative in recent years. Germany has even maintained fairly restrictive policies on skilled migration too. To the extent that Germany uses immigrants to fill labor shortages, it prefers to rely on countries from the EU.

Previously, Germany used to have a very generous policy on allowing in "refugees", as apart of its post-WWII reconciliation. This system was gamed by plenty of unscrupulous migrants from around the world, especially Albania. So Germany has moved to tighten its policies on refugees.

Germany ended "Gasterbeiter" labor migration back in the 1970's when the oil shock slowed down the economy, but high birthrates and family "reunification" kept the Turkish population growing afterward.

Spain did encourage massive amounts of immigration, mostly from Latin America, when the economy was booming. Since the slowdown, Spain has seen some of these migrants leave the country. Policy makers have discouraged new migrants from coming into the country.

Japan has actually payed immigrants, many of them ethnic Japanese-Brazilians, to go back home.

The UK, under the Tory Cameron government, has moved to cut migration through tightening the student-to-PR process and using income requirements to deter South Asians from arranging spouses from back home.

The US is unique in that even in the midst of the worst recession in decades, it continues to allow high levels of immigration. It's even more unique in that most of its major policy makers want a major expansion of immigration to alleviate "worker shortages."

Steve, a lot of the immigrants in Spain are Muslims and/or Africans, Spain like Italy being an easy stop for migrating Muslims and Africans. So Spain probably is doing worse with basically a re-reconquista.

Germany of course is doomed. Brenda Walker at VDARE.com has a piece on the massive influx of Africans converging on Italy and Spain, heading north. All those Africans will demand Camp of the Saints welfare and Germans will just have to give it to them. What are they going to do, deport them? Brussels/Europe won't allow it. And they don't have a Fidesz or Jobbik threat to point and say, "well we better do these things or you'll be dealing with THOSE GUYS" as Hungary's PM and Fidesz leader can do. Merkel? Not exactly Margaret Thatcher in picking political battles.

Steve, I doubt we're going to see epic tank warfare in Ukraine... here's a hilarious video of a tank being captured by locals.

Ukraine is known for its rich farmland. Watching that tank chew up the ground makes you realize how good that land is. The soil is about as black as coal. Shoot, if American farmers could farm Ukraine, it would be the world's breadbasket.

The numbers actually explain a lot. The big increase in the U.S. population naturally requires a corresponding big increase in the number of jobs available (this doesn't even touch on what the QUALITY of those jobs actually are), or else you will have more unemployed people.

Shadowstats has American real unemployment at over 20%. If you take out the shenanigans about workforce participation, we are currently at Depression level unemployment. And southern border influx is ramping up like crazy because Amnesty is in the wind.

Over here in Blighty I was just watching a BBC programme on our coming electrical energy crisis.

Two problems - one is we *have* to close coal powered generating stations (of course no one can make us do that but the BBC isnt interested in that conversation).

Two is increasing demand due to an increasing population. Apparently the BBC isnt interested in whether we might perhaps do something about that either. Like the weather (or indeed closing power stations) rising population something thats quite outside the scope of preventable ills.

Yes, growth has been similar in the US and Germany during the Great Recession, but German labor market institutions have outperformed ours in terms of employment. One other reason is work sharing. If a firm needs to cut 20% of labor costs because of reduced demand a CEO in the US will fire 20% of his employees. A German CEO will cut everyone's hours by 20%, ending up at the same place in terms of costs. Their version of unemployment insurance then makes up part of the difference for those involuntarily furloughed.

There are also the unique features of the German economic system that Thomas Geoghagen has written about, features that offer power and protection to workers. As he has noted, these were put in place by the US after WWII as an anti-communist measure. Which is an example of Turchin's point about competition from communism spurring pro-worker policies in the west.

I do wonder to what extent Germany controls its own immigration though, as an EU member.

"Over here in Blighty I was just watching a BBC programme on our coming electrical energy crisis."

Expect China to have a much larger role in the UK economy, especially energy and infrastructure, in the next few years. The ineffectual UK leaders will choose this path over any real changes that need to be done.

hmm so the top destinations are Ecuador and UK.....but the part about ~500K approx. emigrating but only 50K are Spanish....

Based on my recent experience in London that city has received a massive influx of Spaniards of late. In the area I stayed in they now seem to outnumber the Poles and Asians working in hotels, fast food restaurants, and pubs. I heard Spanish every time I was on the Tube and they didn't appear to be tourists. Almost all of them were under 30. I'm guessing old people have grabbed all Spain's protected union jobs (often in the civil service) that aren't being created any more with the young getting completely screwed.

whiskey: Brenda Walker at VDARE.com has a piece on the massive influx of Africans converging on Italy and Spain, heading north. All those Africans will demand Camp of the Saints welfare and Germans will just have to give it to them.

Aren't Germans more likely than most EU countries to enforce their laws?

BTW saying Germany was the "sick man of Europe" ten years ago sounds like quite an exaggeration from the Economist.

The decline and even slight reversal of immigration from Turkey to Germany has little to do with policy and is mostly the result of the booming turkish economy, renewed national pride and optimism in Turkey.

Germany did introduce a mandatory language exam for spouses in 2007. This was meant to target import brides for arranged marriages. They needed to comprehend 650 german words and be able to actively use 300. This laughably small requirement was struck down in 2012 by the European Court of Justice because it supposedly contradicts basic european values or something.

Contrary to the claim of a previous commenter, Germany has been attempting to attract high skilled immigrants for some time now. These attempts have completely failed so far. Thilo Sarrazin reasons that high taxes and the difficulty of the German language are to blame.

"Steve, I doubt we're going to see epic tank warfare in Ukraine... here's a hilarious video of a tank being captured by locals."

Some of the things the locals were saying:

Who the f. do you think you're gonna shoot from this thing? Stop, you idiot, stop the tank. Stop it right now. Just stop and get out. Moron. Streams of profanity. Let's pull them out of there. Where did they tell you to go in this? Where. Did. They tell you. To go? Oh, God. More cursing. Didn't I just tell you to stop? F-ing retard.

And so on. And he eventually stops. The recruits aren't just unwilling to shoot at fellow countrymen, they're also very young. I've seen this play a role in other videos of Ukrainian soldiers surrendering their weapons. There are dozens of these videos online.

OT, but 2 strange things about Autumn Radtke, former CEO of bit coin: 1) She was a female CEO in the tech industry with no Wikipedia page; 2) there seems to be no declared official cause of her death yet in Singapore this February.

According to some Dutch people who have a tomato growing business in Spain: spanish youth still prefer to sit at home on unemployment benefits, while the Latin American immigrants work in the green houses. Of course once the immigrants qualify for benefits they will follow the shining example of the locals.

Before the grand financial f*ck-up of 2007, when China was basically coasting the world on an economic boom - that Chinese spending powe eventually busted the bubble, is another story - the idea abroad amongst 'smart' economists was that massive, uncontrolled, unrestricted immigration was always a 'good' - and the cunning bastards managed to wrap in some contrived 'moral' arguments into the bargain. This dogshit managed to fool a great deal of dumb-ass politicians. Politicians are generally vain and shallow folk who always trying to show their 'cleverness' credentials, they way they do this is implement that latest load of horseshit recommended by 'The Economist' magazine. Plus the notion was currebt amongst pinheaded Euro poliicians that "the USA was built on immigration. The USA is the most powerful nation on earth. We kiss American ass. Therefore we must promote immigration". That really and truly is how those bastards think. Shallow, dumb and ass-lickingly sycophantic. Therefore you had the ass-clowns of new Labour importing 7 million foreigners into Britain in 13 years - resulting in falling wages and the mother of all housing bubbles, and the dumb beasts who ran Spain ending up with a collapsed sick joke of an economy.As ever the Germans were deeply conservative and cautious an unswayed by trendiness in thinking, and hard-headed, sensible and practical.

In1990, West Germany incorporated 18 million or so East Germans. Those are luxury immigrants.

They spent a ton of money in the 90's just getting the East up to reasonable standards.

I worked with some guys that grew up in East Germany and they were incredibly happy to be working in Munich. The West was a magnet for the younger East Germans. They were really good also. I mean good workers.

Another aspect of this is that by being in the currency union, they benefit from a weaker currency, which helps exports a great deal. The Mark would look like the Swiss Franc otherwise. They have a very nice trade surplus. Which would strengthen their currency if they didn't have to bail out the rest of the continent.

If a country wants to export, the #1 strategy is to weaken its currency. Korea auto and consumer products kicked Japan's ass after Korea devalued in the late 00's. They can afford a lot of content and QC -- which is how Hyundai and Kia became great values in the US. Anyone remember Glen Garry, Glen Ross? Just thinking about it makes me want to watch Alec Baldwin's performance again. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kZg_ALxEz0

"I drove here in an $80,000 BMW and you drove a Hyundai."

The Swiss won't let anyone in. Even employees of their companies on temporary visas. Plus they get to skip the UN. Neutral. Nice if you can achieve it.

The point being that the US has a negative trade balance of $40 billion / month while the Germans have a surplus of $18 or so (I don't remember, Euros or USD). A good chunk of that is going away with the US gas boom. The US in now the largest gas producer in the world.

The US is the only country in the world that can afford to do really stupid stuff. We spend 18% of GDP on Healthcare vs 11-12% for Germany and Switzerland. Not to mention inflation. I was looking about how health services impacted the CPI, and it doesn't very much, because individuals only pay for 25% of it. And I think American Health Care is good and the studies that show us behind second tier countries use sketchy matrices. I don't care much how it is done, but the entire system is filled with rent seekers of one category or another. The 'so what' of this last rant is that unfunded post retirement health benefits put GM under the bus.

We need to export some of our unemployment by reforming health, education and I would like to say Government, but that is a bridge too far.

"how do you know that all these increases are caused by immigration and not by increased numbers of native births?"

It's a 'known fact' that relatively wealthy, well educated women have better things to do with their lives than have babies. Even in Italy, where the Pope doesn't tolerate birth control or abortion, the birth rates have fallen below replacement.

Of course, a 'known fact' may or may not be true. I picked this up by casually following 3rd wave feminists kicking the butts of 2nd wave feminists. Basically, you gotta have a nanny. They have to be imported. Yes, it would be nice to get northern europeans, but they now also have better things to do.

In Britain before WW I, roughly 10% of al women worked in 'Service' which meant Servant. Out in the suburbs, you can't even get a fu*king baby sitter anymore.

My youngest daughter asked when she was 8 or 10 why we didn't just import babies from China, since we import everything else from there. I didn't have an answer.

There's thousands of Romanians in Spain. They work as construction workers mainly. Less qualified Moroccans work in the fields. As for Hispanics they cater to the services industry, chiefly from Equador.Romanians used to emigrate to Germany ir Italy. They probably flocked to Spain because of the construction boom and because Germany wasn't hiring 15 years ago. Ir also helps that Spanish comes easier to them than German. There's easily over a million Romanians in Spain.

But, being slightly smarter about immigration than George W. Bush hasn't saved Spain from catastrophe.

Yes, I've played those alternate universe games where the Supreme Court gave the 2000 election to Al Gore and I still think we end up in basically the same place in 2014. The real power to shape events lies somewhere else, untouched by electoral outcomes.

It's a 'known fact' that relatively wealthy, well educated women have better things to do with their lives than have babies.

That's probably true, though almost all non-feminist well-educated women seem to have at least 2 kids on average (at least replacement level). I did some reading on the Web and it looks like population increase in Spain indeed is largely due to immigration. But if you check out the demographics here (in the table), the largest percentage increases in population have occurred in Ireland, Cyprus, and Luxembourg; these are hardly immigrant havens.

It's interesting how in light of Steve's post pointing out how Germany is relatively not doomed or less doomed compared to places like Spain and the US, you infer that Germany is definitively doomed.

Allow me to unpack for you:

1) Whiskey's raison d'etre is to defend the Jewish people; in this case, from the accusation that they hold a plurality of American political power and use it to throw open the borders and destroy national cohesion.

2) Germany (and many European countries) has few Jews, but lots of socialism.

3) If Whiskey can show that Germany (or some other European country) is worse Worse WORSE than America in terms of open borders and national cohesion, despite 2), he can advance 1) and blame the open borders and national cohesion problem on Europeans and socialism instead.

~~~

The fact that Europe is better Better BETTER than America in terms of open borders and national cohesion (there are no countries in Europe in the bad shape America is in) AND has fewer Jews hasn't really sunk in yet for Whiskey. He seems immune to the fact that his arguments are basically advancing the opposite of his goal in 1).

This is from an Irish perspective: The worst bit is that you in these countries you get - at best - treated like you're crazy if you so much as hint that your compatriots owe you preference, or at least not getting shafted with cheap competition, because you are, y'know, their compatriots. But that only applies to all those uppity workers.

Remember, we owe Irish Americans, especially American oligarchs, passports because - whisper it - race. (I take the same attitude to them as actual Chinese take to Chinese Americans.) We have to "buy Irish" to support agriculture, but god help anyone who even suggests that they might hire exclusively Irish workers. The older people cooing over their compliant, bovine Filipina nurses and Polish cleaners will excoriate anyone who suggests that they might favour Irish workers. What do we think, that we're special or something? But we have to subsidise their retirement and old age because they're Irish, and they worked and they made the country what it is - yeah, that might be part of the problem if they can't be bothered to maintain the nation part of the nation state.

spaniards under 30 are leaving spain. i've posted about this before. they want jobs. no jobs in spain.

i doubt many africans will head to germany. tighter laws, less generous welfare, and the language is harder to learn.

"The US is the only country in the world that can afford to do really stupid stuff. "

only for a while longer though, and only thanks to 200 years of conservatives working their asses off. liberals work hard every day to exhaust the great pile of treasure the US has amassed, the pile of treasure which allows it to do dumb stuff continously.

the democrats who will control the US completely soon are like 25 year old heirs to a billionaire's fortune. prepare for wild, reckless, and humorous spending as the family fortune is slowly but surely exhausted.

Yes, basket case Germany is clearly doomed, unlike thriving Spain and the USA. In fact, Germany's terminal decline is so terminal and so obvious that it doesn't even warrant any discussion - just a quick mention in passing. Good old Whiskey and his feisty Scotch-Irish argumentativeness!

The U-6 unemployment rate is the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ (BLS) broadest unemployment measure, including short-term discouraged and other marginally-attached workers as well as those forced to work part-time because they cannot find full-time employment.

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As per Ireland, as long as the immigrants are white Europeans, I don't see a long-term problem. 100 years from now, those fourth and fifth generation Poles will be absorbed and only recognizably 'Polish' by their surnames. The TRUE PROBLEM is with non-white, non-European peoples.

As for Alan Shatter, he is, (OF COURSE), not Irish, but a member of the tribe.

The Irish population of 4.5 million contains more than 540,000 non-Irish nationals. There are more Poles than Britons living there.

Something funny is going on in Ireland:(...)In 2011, figures show $602 million (€468m) in 'remittances' was sent from Ireland to Nigeria, an average of more than €26,000 for each of the 17,642 Nigerian nationals in Ireland, including children.

This is far more than was sent home by Poles from Ireland, who sent $224 million (€174m), even though there are more than 122,000 Polish people in the country.(...)Read more: http://www.irishcentral.com/news/nigerian-migrants-send-653-million-a-year-home-from-ireland-new-figures-show-208111121-237590721.html#ixzz2z0CaHmi3 Follow us: @IrishCentral on Twitter | IrishCentral on Facebook

Anonymous said...As per Ireland, as long as the immigrants are white Europeans, I don't see a long-term problem. 100 years from now, those fourth and fifth generation Poles will be absorbed and only recognizably 'Polish' by their surnames. The TRUE PROBLEM is with non-white, non-European peoples.

As for Alan Shatter, he is, (OF COURSE), not Irish, but a member of the tribe.

4/15/14, 4:11 PM

Bull. The. Fuck. Shit.

The Eastern European are undercutting the weakest Irish - remember them? - people. They are obnoxious and arrogant. Their loyalties are elsewhere. They are not, and will never be, Irish. I hate them more than I can express. Believe it or not, being a nation is more than sharing a vaguely similar skin colour. You could bring in, say, a million Norwegians and, while they wouldn't cause the same problems as 10,000 Muslims they still would hurt the actual Irish and their descendants wouldn't be Irish.

The decline and even slight reversal of immigration from Turkey to Germany has little to do with policy and is mostly the result of the booming turkish economy, renewed national pride and optimism in Turkey.

Germany did introduce a mandatory language exam for spouses in 2007. This was meant to target import brides for arranged marriages. They needed to comprehend 650 german words and be able to actively use 300. This laughably small requirement was struck down in 2012 by the European Court of Justice because it supposedly contradicts basic european values or something.

Contrary to the claim of a previous commenter, Germany has been attempting to attract high skilled immigrants for some time now. These attempts have completely failed so far. Thilo Sarrazin reasons that high taxes and the difficulty of the German language are to blame.

Turkey only has 1/4th of Germany's per capita GDP. Saying the economic boom is keeping Turks at home is a bit like saying Mexico's growing economy deters Mexican migration. I wouldn't deny that better prospects and optimism back home keep some Turks from going to Germany, but there are still an enormous number of poorer Turks, especially Kurdish-Turks, who could benefit from migration. They don't migrate in large numbers because the Germans use lots of bureaucracy to keep them out.

That language test is still mandatory. As of April 2014. Germans don't back down.

Unlike American leaders, German politicians are invested in their culture and don't want to be overrun.

German industry wants to bring in non-European workers, mainly from India, but German unions are so powerful that they've fought the effort with ferocity. German companies are afraid to upset their unions and so minimize foreign worker recruitment. German companies would rather face "worker shortages" than angry unions, which works out well for German workers.

Germany offers a lot of good lessons for Americans to learn.

It also benefits from a relatively patriotic elite and a labor-right unspoken consensus to keep immigration low.

The only major issue Germany confronts is its low fertility rate among its women. Germany needs to fix that.

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